Posted on Sunday 5 May 2013-1BOM
“I ended an open question… with: “But did Kraepelin’s notion of constitutional inferiority impact his legacy? our current nosology? I don’t know the answer to that and it’s the worst of things for idle speculation. It is an open question.” The more I read about Kraepelin, the Social Darwinism of that period, the Eugenics Movement, etc., the more I think his sociopolitical view of people did color his taxonomy and his view of neurotic illness as constitutional weakness. Whether that has transferred up the historical chain is unclear, even if the opinion has stayed the same. But I do wonder how widespread that view is today?
I’ve said this in a variety of ways before, but while we obsess about reliability, and the longed for validity, there is one parameter in this equation that isn’t discussed enough – legitimacy. In Kraepelin’s world, neurotic illness was simply not legitimate…”http://1boringoldman.com/index.php/2013/05/05/legitimacy-2/